SPQR

Fast-moving, exciting, psychologically acute, warmly sceptical – Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times *Vastly engaging … a tremendously enjoyable and scholarly read. – Natalie Haynes * Observer *Sustaining the energy that such a topic demands for more than 600 pages, while providing a coherent answer to the question of why Rome expanded so spectacularly, is hugely ambitious. Beard succeeds triumphantly … full of insights and delights … SPQR is consistently enlivened by Beard’s eye for detail and her excellent sense of humour. * Sunday Times *Masterful … This is exemplary popular history, engaging but never dumbed down, providing both the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life * Economist *Ground-breaking … invigorating … revolutionary … a whole new approach to ancient history – Thomas Hodgkinson * Spectator *This book is a treasure, both as a fascinating read in itself and as a fine work of reference to correct our lazy misconceptions about an ancient world that still has much to instruct us today * Herald *Praise for Mary Beard:‘She’s pulled off that rare trick of becoming a don with a high media profile who hasn’t sold out, who is absolutely respected by the academy for her scholarship … what she says is always powerful and interesting * Guardian *An irrepressible enthusiast with a refreshing disregard for convention * FT *Dynamically, wittily and authoritatively brings the ancient world to life – Simon Sebag MontefioreWith such a champion as Beard to debunk and popularise, the future of the study of classics is assured * Daily Telegraph *

Mary Beard is a professor of classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, and the classics editor of the TLS. She has world-wide academic acclaim. Her previous books include the bestselling, Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii, The Roman Triumph, The Parthenon and Confronting the Classics. Her blog has been collected in the books It’s a Don’s Life and All in a Don’s Day. She is in the 2014 top 10 Prospect list of the most influential thinkers in the world.